The African American Leadership Forum is deeply committed to closing Minnesota’s nation leading achievement gap.  Ensuring high quality early childhood education is chief amongst strategies to accomplish that goal.

We join the bipartisan coalition of legislators, business leaders, educators, and community members who have proposed funding for scholarships to provide high quality early education to families in poverty. It is troubling that the Minnesota Legislature has halted proposed legislation to provide 3 and 4 year olds the opportunity to attend high quality early education programs that may be currently out of reach.  

Research tells us that the return on investment in early childhood education is $16 for each $1 invested. In fact, the proposal for early learning scholarships results from $20 million of private funds spent over the last 5 years to study what works. We believe this legislation answers a critical need and is key to Minnesota’s global competiveness in the 21st century.

The AALF strongly urges you to support the inclusion of early childhood education scholarships in this year’s budget.